Our trivia questions from last week featured two children’s authors/ illustrators from the 2010 National Book Festival.
56. Our first author finds time to write when she isn’t busy promoting literacy. Living in New Mexico, her books for children are often bilingual, with themes from the desert and the Southwest. Her grandparents came from Mexico during the early 1900’s and now she works to record the culture of the area. Any ideas who she might be?
Pat Mora is probably best known for her work in creating the literacy initiative El día de los niños/El día de los libros, Children’s Day/Book Day, which will be April 30, 2011.
She tells a bit about how she came to be a children’s author in this video. She reveals her first published books were poetry for adults. Her passion for multicultural books is evident.
A selection of Pat Mora’s books:
57. This illustrator has an incredible story to tell. Growing up in rural North Carolina, his school offered no art classes. He taught himself to draw using the few how-to-draw books he found in the school library and by watching television shows about art and artists. When he moved to New Jersey at the beginning of high school, he finally could take art courses. He went on to obtain a degree in illustration and has become an award-winning illustrator of children’s books. No wonder he is on the Children’s Book Council’s list of seventy-five authors and illustrators everyone should know.
The illustrator who had a passion for art as a child is James Ransome. James illustrates books with many authors, but especially with his wife, Lesa Cline Ransome. He is also an illustrator for the serialized book The Exquisite Corpse Adventure, available at Read.gov.
You can see a video of James Ransome at the National Book Festival.
Don’t forget to take a look at some of his wonderful illustrations. Many of these books would be great selections for Black History month.